This question makes no sense, if asked the same way you skip almost every season of Star Trek.
Should you watch 2, of course. It's moderately less sensible than season 3. Even if you dislike certain plot points there are others that score.
Season 2 required to watch or skip it?
- Thread starter urrutiap
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Should you watch 2, of course. It's moderately less sensible than season 3. Even if you dislike certain plot points there are others that score.
That would only be the case if it weren't a predestination paradox. (i.e. 'Picard and company were always supposed to go back in time to fix whatever Q did.') And while there is no ironclad proof that this is the case, in pretty much every instance of time travel in Star Trek, a changed future happened because someone went back in time and screwed something up, by creating a 'diverging point' where things turned out different. Prior to that diverging point, there was a shared past. Once that diverging point is found and fixed, then the alternate future for all intents and purposes ceases to exist (except in the case of the Kelvin Timeline, because nobody went back in time and fixed what Nero did. For some reason the rules of time travel differed in that it created a parallel timeline running alongside the prime one rather than erasing the prime one from existence until someone came along and changed it back, similar to the situation with the Mirror universe and any other alternate universe that the producers decide to create. Either way, the KT also has a shared past with the prime timeline pre-2233.) So unless you know for a fact that it wasn't a predestination paradox, we can't say for certain that the past changed along with the future.
Whatever their intent, the scene showed that the time travel events of TVH happened in the shared past, so logically the time travel events of "Time's Arrow" should also have happened in the shared past. Plus, by your logic, in the changed timeline, there would have been no Kirk and Co. stealing a BoP and going back in time to save the whales, yet the Punk on the Bus scene clearly shows that this still happened, whether it was an 'easter egg' or not.
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We know it as a fact it wasn't a predestination paradox.
Guinan is the proof. I guess it's up to the viewer to accept what they plainly see and what's given to us, or to ignore it because they liked the easter egg more.
Guinan is the proof. I guess it's up to the viewer to accept what they plainly see and what's given to us, or to ignore it because they liked the easter egg more.
Sloppy writing and Matalas forgetting stuff isn't proof of anything.
There are maybe 3 or 4 direct references to it in season 3, and a few more indirect references. Episodes 201, 202, and 210 are largely worth watching.
There's also no proof he forgot about Times Arrow.
We're just going to go in circles here, so I think we should just drop this topic.
If you want to stop talking about it, fine. But we’re having a civilized discussion here. There’s no reason ‘we’ need to drop it just because you don’t like what’s being said.
Agreed, at least watch those three.
Plus, by that point, it's only seven more to finish off the season, you might find there's something in there you like. It's not like most of us haven't watched seven episodes from other Trek seasons that a lot of people hate, but you may personally like.
Season 2 made reasonable sense, for the most part (if you really paid attention to the Borg Queen plot thread), it just spun its wheels like fucking crazy and had weird fucking pacing (Seasons 1 & 3, for all their faults, had much better pacing).
Matalas, as a script writer, supposedly only really concentrated over Episodes 1 & 2 of Season 2 and that makes sense with hindsight (which is why the season nearly died once they hit alternate "present day" Los Angeles).
Obviously they were passionate about Season 3 (and treating Season 2 as a buffer full of filler and finding ways to kill off or semi-retire S1 characters).
Yeah, I get the sense Matlas and company inherited a bunch of stuff they didn't want from Chabon and half-assed it for a season before they could get to what they really wanted to do.
But was it his idea because he wanted to really do it or was it his idea because he needed any possible idea to do the show around Covid restrictions? Also for all the criticism season 3 gets for fan service then season 2 might even be worst. Q,Guinan,Borg Queen, Another Data ancestor played by Brent Spiner, Time traveling Romulans, Wesley Crusher, Stargazer,Picards dad, Voyage Home guy with boom box and all those dead skeltons of Dukat and Martock etc.
Season 2 went through multiple iterations. Matalas' first pitch was to involve Q and time travel, since the later could save on set construction costs with practical location shooting (keep in mind most of Matalas' past experience involved location shooting in Toronto, Atlanta, and eastern Europe pre-pandemic on less top heavy budgeted shows).
One idea was the Eugenics Wars (and then how they might reconcile that with the then pre-existing continuity).
They seem to have settled on the general Q changes the present to the quasi-mirror universe dystopia then they travel back to the 2020s format fairly early. Michael Chabon wrote two full episodes set in the dystopia that were paired down and completely rewritten twice. While Matalas wanted something a little more light hearted a la TVH, Akiva Goldsman pushed the Picard childhood trauma angle.
Matalas was originally going to involve many more aliens on Earth and have it be "more SF", but this was vetoed by higher ups. The Confederation Laris was originally going to travel back in time with everyone else.
Paramount+ programming head Julie McNamara left in late May of 2021. New executives came in mid season and altered some of the season plans. What elements are present in say episodes 203 and 204 that were quickly abandoned afterwards?
It's highly likely the "Q dying" part came later... as 202 foreshadows a lot of Q being angry towards Picard about... something.
One thing to keep in mind is that all of the Stargazer scenes were shot at the end of the season, while the Academy and Confederation Earth scenes were the first to be shot.
One idea was the Eugenics Wars (and then how they might reconcile that with the then pre-existing continuity).
They seem to have settled on the general Q changes the present to the quasi-mirror universe dystopia then they travel back to the 2020s format fairly early. Michael Chabon wrote two full episodes set in the dystopia that were paired down and completely rewritten twice. While Matalas wanted something a little more light hearted a la TVH, Akiva Goldsman pushed the Picard childhood trauma angle.
Matalas was originally going to involve many more aliens on Earth and have it be "more SF", but this was vetoed by higher ups. The Confederation Laris was originally going to travel back in time with everyone else.
Paramount+ programming head Julie McNamara left in late May of 2021. New executives came in mid season and altered some of the season plans. What elements are present in say episodes 203 and 204 that were quickly abandoned afterwards?
It's highly likely the "Q dying" part came later... as 202 foreshadows a lot of Q being angry towards Picard about... something.
One thing to keep in mind is that all of the Stargazer scenes were shot at the end of the season, while the Academy and Confederation Earth scenes were the first to be shot.
various interviews with Terry Matalas (and maybe Christopher Monfette)
ohh I forgot... Emily Hampshire was the original choice for the alt-Borg Queen, but Covid restrictions and scheduling conflicts got in the way
Except Guinan is also the proof that it was predestination. When the story is all over and they talk to "Now" Guinan, she apologizes for not telling them sooner and points out that there has been a photo of Rios in the bar the whole time.
The season is a mess.
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